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Nicolas Cage's involvement with horror game Dead by Daylight began because of his children. 

"We were very lucky because he had heard of us," Dead by Daylight director Mathieu Côté told me at PAX East 2025, "I believe some of his children play the game. He wanted to do it because he had personal reasons to get involved with us, which was great."

In case you don't already know - Nicolas Cage is a downloadable, playable character in the 2016 staple of asymmetrical horror gaming. And we're not talking about a character voiced by Cage, but Cage himself. In fact, according to Côté, Cage did the voice for his DBD avatar even in a way that most voice actors would want to avoid.

"We talked [with Cage] about the voice recording," Côté explains, "and we said, because survivors in our game screech and scream a lot, oftentimes we use metal singers to do the voices. People who are used to really threatening their voice box. And so when we came time to record with Nic Cage, we said, 'We could have you record the voice lines and everything, and then for the screeches and grunts and exertions, we'll have a soundalike.' It's fine, because we know his voice box is his paycheck."

But in classic Nicolas Cage fashion, the Kiss of the Vampire actor was only happy to go to extremes that others weren't.

"He's like, 'No,'" says Côté. "'There's never been a Nic Cage soundalike, and we're not going to start today."

Obviously, the Dead by Daylight team had not choice but to accept his offer, not that they were any objections. "He recorded it," Côté recalls from being in the office as the session went down, "and it was... I mean, I'll remember that 'til my last days. He was an amazing professional. He got in the booth, took his jacket off, took the sheets, and within 12 seconds, we had pure gold already recorded."

A National Treasure, indeed.

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